Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Modern land claim agreements are the main instrument to deal with land, water, management, and to ensure that the wildlife management is managed through a system of land and water that is regulated under the Mackenzie Valley Resources Management Act, federal legislation. These management arrangements were established through the land claims agreements to give First Nations people an opportunity not only to have a say in the management of the herd, but have an opportunity to manage the herd internally. Through the wildlife management boards and the land claims agreements, we have established the Inuvialuit Games Council, the Gwich’in Renewable Resources Board, the Sahtu Renewable Resources Board and the Wek’eezhii Renewable Resources Board, and they are the fundamental instruments to ensure that management of wildlife in their geographical areas. Included in that is a joint arrangement for the conservation boards to work in conjunction with each other to deal with herds that travel outside their boundaries, whether it’s the Bluenose herd, the Porcupine caribou herd, or the barren-ground caribou herds in the Northwest Territories and elsewhere.
One of the main reasons for the establishment of these boards was to ensure the residents and the harvesters in those areas have a system of consultation to be informed on any decision-making process so they are not left out of the system. They are part of the system, they have systems in place for how decisions will be made and they have a format for public consultation. They have a system to make decisions.
The system that was used between the Gwich’in, Inuvialuit and Sahtu regarding the Bluenose caribou herd, a species questioned about its declining numbers, they worked together between the three land claims organizations to formulate a conservation plan on how they were going to be able to deal with the restrictions in certain areas for harvesting the herds, look at measures such as the number of caribou that can be harvested, using a tag system, and allowing their harvesters to carry out their responsibilities.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.
These conservation measures for the Bluenose-West herd were achieved through consultation, dialogue with the harvesters and dialogue with communities where they took the time and made an attempt to find a resolution to this problem coming to an agreement by all parties.
With regard to the situation we see here in the North Slave, it looks like that system is not in place or hasn’t even been considered. For some reason the Minister made a decision which overrode the political structure and the process of the Tlicho Land Claim Agreement to use that instrument, which is the fundamental instrument to deal with wildlife management in the Tlicho area and for a herd that has implications for other people.
At the appropriate time I will be asking the Minister of ENR questions about the conservation of caribou.
